San Antonio Councilman Ron Nirenberg said Friday that he remains concerned about the future of the controversial Vista Ridge water pipeline and stands behind comments he made this month about the financial status of the company building it.

He reiterated his stance after the president of the pipeline construction company strongly disagreed with what the councilman said on a recent episode of the KLRN show “Texas Week with Rick Casey.”

Nirenberg, who has embarked on a mayoral campaign to oust incumbent Ivy Taylor, said he harbors concerns about whether the pipeline will deliver water in the long term, when the city would need it most.

Nirenberg noted that the first company involved in the deal, Abengoa SA, nearly went bankrupt, and the second, Garney Construction, “may or may not be solvent enough to finish the pipeline.”

He also has raised concerns that the city-owned San Antonio Water System would take over the pipeline, shifting the risk from a private company to ratepayers. Nirenberg has said the project is “high risk” for several reasons, including whether the requisite water permits will be in place 30 years from now when SAWS will own it.

“If the project, which is a 30-year-long construction and delivery process, if that project can’t pass muster, if it doesn’t meet the scrutiny that’s required, I won’t support it,” he said on the show. “Today, it doesn’t meet that scrutiny.”

On Thursday, Scott Parrish, chief operating officer of Garney’s western pipe operations and president of Vista Ridge LLC, responded in writing to Nirenberg, with copies to his council colleagues, the mayor and her staff, and Robert Puente, CEO of SAWS.

“As you know, leading banks approved the $927 million in loans to Garney for the construction of the pipeline,” Parrish wrote. “Those loans were based on the company’s creditworthiness and the strength of its balance sheet.”

Parrish’s letter also states that while Puente, prior to October, “had mentioned the possibility of buying out the project,” there’s been no discussion of that scenario since the “financial close” of the project.

“Under Garney’s leadership, the project continues to be on time and on budget while meeting all the terms and conditions” of its agreement with SAWS, he wrote. He also countered Nirenberg about the project’s risks to SAWS and the ratepayers, saying they have not changed.

Nirenberg said he’s contemplating a response to Parrish, noting that “the ability to get a loan is far different than the ability to repay it.”

Puente on Friday said he and the SAWS board, on which the mayor sits, have the “utmost confidence” that Garney will complete the pipeline.

“Its solvency is a nonissue, as it has secured almost $1 billion in loans needed for construction of the pipeline,” and is meeting deadlines, he said, adding that a SAWS’ buyout of the project was “pure conjecture.”

On “Texas Week,” Nirenberg also accused Taylor of blocking efforts to give more control and oversight to the City Council. Nirenberg has unsuccessfully demanded that the council vote on major changes to the pipeline contract.

Taylor fired back on Friday, saying Nirenberg has always voted in favor of the Vista Ridge pipeline.

“Under my leadership, City Council unanimously approved this project twice. I’m proud of our decision,” she said via text messages. “We’ve ensured our city will have the water we’ll need for the growth we know is coming and to continue adding jobs. Listening to Councilman Nirenberg talk about Vista Ridge, it’s easy to forget that he voted for the project both times. Maybe he’s changed his mind.”

The councilman said the current contract is drastically different from the one he voted for in 2014. The second vote, a year later, was for a five-year rate increase that covered costs for several needed SAWS projects aside from Vista Ridge.

He accused Taylor of rejecting a request to split out the vote on rate increases specifically for Vista Ridge. Had the council had that opportunity, Nirenberg said, he would have advocated for a requirement that SAWS come before the council each year to get approval for Vista Ridge-related rate increases.

And he fired back that “until she was convinced streetcar was a bad idea, she voted twice for that too.”

Though Nirenberg usually attacks the mayor for failed leadership, it was Taylor who implied that Nirenberg was deficient.

“He’s surely not trying to compare the proposed streetcar to a project that ensures our water future,” Taylor responded. “A leader recognizes when an issue is taking too much time and attention away from what’s really important to San Antonio taxpayers — that’s why I killed streetcar.”

Josh Baugh has covered City Hall for the San Antonio Express-News since 2009. A native of the Alamo City, Baugh was hired as a suburban-cities reporter at his hometown newspaper in 2006. He began his newspaper career at the Denton Record-Chronicle while working on a master's degree in journalism at the University of North Texas and later covered Texas A&M University for The Eagle in College Station. He's covered various facets of government and politics ever since. Baugh has previously written about public housing, county government and transportation for the Express-News.